He told me in 1997, eight years after saying on TV that Rushdie should be lynched, that he was in favour of stoning women to death for adultery. He also reconfirmed his position on Rushdie. He set up the Islamia school in Brent, which is currently undergoing council-backed expansion. Its mission statement three years ago explicitly stated that its aim was to bring about the submission of the individual, the community and the world at large to Islam. For this aim it now receives state funding. Its an incubator of the most bonkers religious extremism and segregation, and is particularly strong on the public erasure of women. Why do people go to such lengths to ignore these aspects of Yusuf Islam’s character and philosophy?

I have a hunch that Yusuf Islam has evolved in his thinking. He gave up music for twenty years, because he thought Islam forbid such frivolities (all while living very well off his five-year stint as a star from royalties). Then he decided a few years ago to record a record of Islamic spiritual music. Finally, in the past two years, he started to sing and record new pop songs, and to perform his old hits — as he did at the rally.

But if he has changed, what he has to do is publicly recant his radical fundamentalist views, and apologize formally to Rushdie. If he is indeed a true moderate Muslim, as he wants people to think, nothing less will do. And those who are artists — like Colbert and Stewart — must stand with the likes of Rushdie before giving a platform to the possibly unrepentant Yusuf Islam. That is, unless they prefer to stand by their own illusions and ignore reality. Are liberal comics so dense that cannot do what is right?

UPDATE:

I have just received the following information from a sharp reader, who sent me the following. I was not aware, nor have I seen the following about Yusuf Islam’s most recent views recently cited anywhere. Here they are:

In a 2000 Rolling Stone magazine interview:

I’m very sad that this seems to be the No. 1 question people want to discuss. I had nothing to do with the issue other than what the media created. I was innocently drawn into the whole controversy. So, after many years, I’m glad at least now that I have been given the opportunity to explain to the public and fans my side of the story in my own words. At a lecture, back in 1989, I was asked a question about blasphemy according to Islamic Law, I simply repeated the legal view according to my limited knowledge of the Scriptural texts, based directly on historical commentaries of the Qur’an. The next day the newspaper headlines read, “Cat Says, Kill Rushdie.” I was abhorred [appalled?], but what could I do? I was a new Muslim. If you ask a Bible student to quote the legal punishment of a person who commits blasphemy in the Bible, he would be dishonest if he didn’t mention Leviticus 24:16.

On his personal spiritual website he wrote:

I never called for the death of Salman Rushdie; nor backed the Fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini–and still don’t. The book itself destroyed the harmony between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis. When asked about my opinion regarding blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that–like both the Torah and the Gospel–the Qur’an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense. The Bible is full of similar harsh laws if you’re looking for them. However, the application of such Biblical and Qur’anic injunctions is not to be outside of due process of law, in a place or land where such law is accepted and applied by the society as a whole…

I think this does show that Yusuf Islam has to some degree modified his earlier views. And this should be encouraged. So — I’ll gladly hum along on “Peace Train.”

UPDATE: Tuesday, Nov.2, 11 AM, EST.

Today, Nick Cohen reports on the conversation he had yesterday with Salman Rushdie. This is what Rushdie told him on the phone:

I spoke to Jon Stewart about Yusuf Islam’s appearance. He said he was sorry it upset me, but really, it was plain that he was fine with it. Depressing.

Drawing appropriate analogy, Cohen writes “ ‘Pathetic’ is the word I would use. If members of the Tea Party said that American intellectuals who renounced Christianity deserved to die for their apostasy would Stewart be fine with that too? Of course he wouldn’t. His eyes would roll, his voice would thunder and that charming schoolboy smile would vanish from his face. He would never forget, until they repudiated.”

Those who commented on my post yesterday, pointing out that Yusuf “Cat Stevens” Islam’s two statements do not in fact apologize directly for his approval of the fatwa against Rushdie are correct. He still denies saying what he in fact very clearly did say. Before anyone should ask the singer to appear at their event- especially one that is supposedly meant to foster harmony and sanity- Yusuf Islam should be asked to clearly and unequivocally repudiate his past statements, and admit that he in fact made them.

On The New Criterion website, Michael Weiss makes the further very shrewd observation in the form of a question about why Yusuf was invited to participate. “Would it be rude to guess at his decision to invite Cat Stevens,” Weiss asks, “a.k.a. Yusuf Islam, to perform at last weekend’s mass rally in implausibly denied partisanship at the National Mall? Who better than a British-Cypriot convert to Islam with multi-platinum records under his caftan to combat the vicious demonization of Muslims by the Tea Party and anti-mosque fanatics. Except that Yusuf Islam is a right-wing fundamentalist who makes Sarah Palin look like Bella Abzug. Nothing is more of a ratings boost for that hebephrenic pseudo-historian Glenn Beck than exhibiting a medieval apologist for murder as a spokesperson for ‘sane’ America.”

62 Comments, 39 Threads

1.
Thomas_L.......

Sorry Ron. Short of the apology and mea culpa that you advise, the RS interview merely shows that the rookie jihadist has boned up on the concept of taqqiya. Barring the former, nothing else has changed, least of all his mind.

So no, Stevens/Islam/Whatever-you-wanna-call-him was NOT innocently drawn in. He went as far as saying that if, in an “Islamic state” he was ordered to kill Rushdie, he might do it. The implication is that all that’s holding him back is the law of the land rather than a moral imperative. Or perhaps he’d be happy to see Rushdie dead as long as someone else did the killing.

I will not accept the “I’m sorry you misunderstood me” non-apology as proof that Stevens has reformed. He should say outright that Salman Rushdie does not deserve to die for writing a book. He should say that the fatwa is unjust, not that he merely “doesn’t back it”. He should say that he’s changed his mind, not that he was misquoted. Until then, he is a moral coward and a disgrace to artists everywhere.

If his comments came as a response to a hypothetical then it could significantly alter their context, to the point where they ceased to be a true reflection of his views. His explanation is entirely plausible but more information is needed.

This is no modification. It’s the usual weasel words uttered by an islamist who understands current, existing islamic law perfectly well, while insisting that he would not “support” such a punishment unless it occurred within a duly organised islamic state (which he is obliged to bring about). In other words, if he were a citizen of Iran, he would FULLY support the execution of Rushdie for blasphemy and do everything in his power to insure that ever other country on the earth would do the same thing. Do you not recall the Salafi Imam recorded in the Dispatches documentary? “How do we deal with anyone who leaves off islam? KILL HIM . . . . in the islamic state (added as an aside, after a notable pause). Meh

I could be wrong, but my recollection of the fatwa is that it empowered any muslim anywhere to carry out the punishment against Rushdie. I suspect it is this aspect of the fatwa, rather than the death penalty for blasphemy per se, that forms the basis of Yusuf’s disagreement with the fatwa. That would make sense based on this and earlier statements and similar statements from other islamists who often hedge their more extreme views by assuring non-muslims that such judgments are only valid “in an islamic state.”

Ignore his words at your own peril. Rushdie put it well enough as far as the death threat. When he says above, in effect, ‘don’t worry about Sharia, we only practice it in Saudi Arabia’ he is omitting the fundamental tenets of Islam and their manifestation in Jihad. He also does exactly what leftists/liberals do and downplays actual Islamic practices by saying, falsely, that Jews and Christians do the same.

I don’t think most ‘conservatives’ in America ‘get’ Islam, nor will they ever.

In the second quote (from his website) he says the book destroyed between peoples and created an unnecessary international crisis. So the book is responsible for the crisis, not the ones reacting to it. How is that change?

When there are enough Muslims in a country, and that number feel confident that their death cult can act with impunity, that is when the mask will come down. Until then, the Muslims in the west will preach a defensive peace, and men like Jon Stewart will protect them by ridiculing anyone who claims Islam is a problem.

Comparing Old Testament Judaism, reformed by both Jews and Christians, to unreformed Islam is ignorant, at best.

But I think this line of analysis gets pretty close to what Islam’s problem is — or stated differently, what the rest of the world’s problem is with Islam.

The only thing in the Old Testament “carved in stone” so to speak is the Ten Commandments.
In the New Testament, only a fraction of it is written in red letters (the exact words of Christ). Everything else has come to us through a rigorous distillation, through experience and intelligent discourse, reaching all the way back to the beginning of moral history.

In Islam, every bit of the Quran is doctrinally a direct quotation of the God. As such, it is unreformable. All that intelligent discourse and learning from history is itself blasphemy.

That’s why Mr. Islam needed only a cursory education in what it said in order to confidently sanction the murder of Rushdie. That’s also why smart (or moderate, or modern) Muslims, have such little power or inclination to take on the radicals in their midst. The radicals are correct about Islam — configured as it is, it is incompatible with western enlightenment ideals.

“If you ask a Bible student to quote the legal punishment of a person who commits blasphemy in the Bible, he would be dishonest if he didn’t mention Leviticus 24:16.”

In this case, the Bible student is studying history. The analogous Quran student is practicing politics.

If we only had to worry about a direct translation of the Quran, that would be one thing. The problem is, thanks to Islam’s attempt to keep believers in the stone age, the vast majority of Muslims can’t read a single word of their text. Sure, they will make their boys phonetically memorize the entire thing but they won’t understand a single word of Arabic. This is why competing religious leaders in Islam have so damn much power as they can tell their followers to do anything. This is also why there are a constant stream of conflicting fatwas issues against everything under the sun including rival Muslim leaders.

As much as I can’t stand hippies, I really wish we could get off oil so we could ignore this entire region.

J (comment on 11/1/10): as you correctly point out the Torah does call for the “stoning” of blasphemers and its enforcement ‘historically’ is much like the injunction of the Fifth Commandment. Had that injunction been enforced and not merely taken as a ‘warning’ to unruly sons/daughters there would be no Jews in the World! Would that the Muslims learn from us that sometimes an ‘injunction’ is meant only to be a warning!

If I understand Stevens’ position correctly, it is that he, personally, has nothing against Salman Rushdie, and has no desire to stone women for adultery, either. However, his imaginary playmate sees matters differently. And he doesn’t want to cross his imaginary playmate.

I do not agree that evil desires and intentions become benign when attributed to one’s imaginary playmate. Rather the opposite, in fact. Stevens is so full of Islam his eyes are brown.

Hmmm. This reminds me of something Frank Zappa said in the pre-teabagger age: “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre.”

By the end of his life, Frank had become a lot more of a conservative. . . . maturity, maybe. He had more talent/creativity in one hand than ol’ cat/yusef has in his whole unwashed body. . . . “let me take you to the beach. . . .”

Stewart, in particular, is an ass and should be thrown out of the country along with Cat..Stewart gets attention by the stunts he pulls. This latest one is totally out of line. I think we are giving him too much credit by even discussing him.

People say terrible things about other people under the guise of the first amendment.
Cat? Peace train? Stewart himself is an inslut
..Colbert is just there for the money and kookaid, frankly I think he might be mixing the
kookaid and imbibing a bit too much.

I find them all insulting to me and my nation. Maybe Stewart is a closet muslim/radical/benedict arnold type person???

It is not your nation, it is our nation. If you do not like the man don’t watch his show. However, he has a first amendment right to say what he wants. It is not very American to want to throw people you disagree with out of the country. What ridiculous stunts? Here I thought he got attention because people like me watched his show on television. Silly me. They both have comedy shows and do not pretend they are anything else, unlike Beck and his ilk. Notice that the daily show appears on COMEDY CENTRAL. Don’t take your crazy out on other people.

Um, so what if Stevens recanted? If any of us ordinary people, bereft of some cunning song-list or identity, lashed out at certain groups, we’d be permanently outside the pale, as it were.

Consistency is a virtue demonstrably lacking in apologetics for selective scumbags like this.

Back in the early 90′s, I lost a job because of men who thought like Cat . . . Muhammed. I was working on a rug show (really) at a merchandise mart in Atlanta. The Muslim clients went to my boss and told them they didn’t want women building their display booths or touching their product because we menstruated and were therefore impure.

Nice. I lost a week of salary because I was off the show. Unlike some intellectual practices, you don’t get to protest without bad consequences in blue collar industries, so I had to clam up to save my long-term gig. From all that I have read and experienced, Hollywood cohort fuzzies notwithstanding, Cat Stevens has done identical things to female scut workers in the entertainment world.

You should be more angry about that.

I definitely needed that money. For, like, rent. I didn’t blame my boss because he was in a bad position and would suffer the same consequences as me if he protested. He tried to move me to another job site, but it was a slow time.

And I never could operate a forklift because I am unable to drive backwards. An ethical, if impractical and fairly solitary stance, as it turns out.

So I have no sympathy for people from the intellectual classes who are willing to ever excuse behavior like this. No sympathy at all. Luckily, I had good co-workers, chivalrous, real men with names like Tootie and Slim and Tiny, who had the decency to be genuinely committed to the principles we are supposed to demonstrate about being Americans and believing in equality and fair play under all circumstances, bar none.

Ah, and the Tina Trent saga goes on. Next week, she’ll tell us about the time that she forgot to flush her toilet, and perhaps the week after that, we can get her to tell us about the time that she left a whole stack of dirty dishes piled up in her kitchen sink.

any religion justifies the killing of someone insulting that religion is inspired by the devil itself, because JESUS said that the devil is the killer and liar, there’s no truth in him. Repent Jusuf Islam and invite JESUS into your heart as LORD and SAVIOUR and HE will direct your path and lift up your hatred !!! Islam cannot and will not coexist peacefully with democracy, because Islam is a religion of satan !!!!!

Islam’s/Steven’s statment to RS is exactly in line with his support for the school in Lebanon. He says that the fatwa should not be carried out in countries whose goverment does not follow Islamic law, but is contributing to a school who’s aim is spread Sharia throughout the world: his (and other’s) goal being that one day the UK (and the West) will be under Sharia and at that point it will be fine to kill Rushdie as well as all of the Jews and other infidels (which, by the way, would include Stewart, who is Jewish – what a turd).

WoW, it was just a song performance from a legendary artist…relax and let this issue go.

Who cares what his opinion is of Rushdie, he’s still promoting a positive message. Rather than wasting time asking and answering silly questions (Taken In by this extremist) why not do something of benefit.

Talk is cheap.

ps. Aside from entertainment factor, the short speech by Stewart was quite good.

Mr Peace Train also supports Hamas. Now that may be in fashion for some, but as far as I am concerned it’s a genocidal islamic group and those that support genocide of the Jews/Israel are scum in my book. Mr Train (yeah i KNOW his real NAMES (plural)) is full of it.

Mr Train seeks peace thru conquest. Only when all submit to Islam/Allah, with Ole Mo has his greatest prophet, will there be PEACE. Sorry Charlie that dog dont hunt where I come from.

Time to be honest to Mr Train’s far left friends, enjoy your friendship with evil, there will be a time when the dog will turn and bite you in the ass.

Women’s Rights, Gay Right’s, Alternative lifestyles of the progressives? ALL targeted by Mr Train’s friends for destruction. It’s like “queers for palestine”….

But I am being to accept the fact that there is a sizable number of “folks” who remind me of a frog in a pot of cold water on a stove… They dont notice the slow heat being turned on…

So in the end? We screamed, we yelled, we are made fun of by the progressives because we are HONEST in the threat by Creeping Sharia, no more, enjoy Londonstan you morons and no I will not cry when you fall victim to those you now embrace.

Taqqiya. This is the act that they wish us to buy? Come on, Cat or whomever you are, either get on the camel or stand with the non-Muslim world. Believe whichever God you wish to follow but sharia will never rule over the world!

You are absolutely correct. The Gospel does not give the death penalty for anything. The earliest Christians were perfect pacifists. This only changed when the Church became associated with the state, at which point it became necessary to reach back to the Old Testament to justify the actions of the state.

Yusef Islam shows his shallow and ignorant grasp of Christianity. The same shallow and ignorant understanding shown by all converts to Islam. And yes, you can have a lot of book learning but still not understand the subject.

But most people would not even think twice to question his statement. They have had the notion that all religions are equivalent beaten into their heads for so long that it has become as much Gospel as the Gospel itself.

I don’t see any pull back by Stevens/Islam. Today, not even the most literalist earth is only 6000 years old fundamentalist Christian believes in capital punishment for blasphemy. Well anyone who’s taken seriously and would be on the stage at a big rally. Christianity underwent a Reformation, that’s what Islam needs as well.

Ron,
You have been taken in as badly as Jon Stewart, I am sorry to say.

Frankly, you should not have written this piece, if you did not know the actual words of Yusuf Islam.

He said, in response to a question, does Rushdie deserve to die?

“Yes.”

Do you have a duty to be his executioner?

If I were in an Islamic state, and I was asked by the judge to do carry out such an act, then, perhaps, Yes.

So, Cat Stevens said Rushdie deserved to die, and he expressed no reservations about the idea that such would be the penalty in an Islamic state, and he even expressed a limited willingness to carry out the execution himself.

2. Re Cat’s updated “explanation”: There is no denial by Cat that Rushdie deserves the death penalty; merely the truism that Cat personally lacks the legal authority to issue the death sentence. It fully appears that Cat has not changed his position, but has cleverly learned to obfuscate it. The good-natured desire to give Cat the benefit of the doubt seems to have been misused by Cat.

What got Salman Rushdie under the Fatwa was not an attack on Allah or the Koran or even that it was set in a Harem (after all women are the seducers). It was Mohammad’s Harem! Here is the glue that binds it all together, Muslims worship Mohammad. Mohammad is GOD, therefore his word is absolute, unchangeable and Holey! The Mullah’s derive their power form Mohammad not Allah. If he were open for discussion as a person the house of cards collapses!

Linking their ditzy so-called “rally” with Glenn Beck’s successful rally was a futile attempt to give their pathetic “rally” some measure of credibilty, thereby inadvertently enhancing the effect of Glenn Beck’s rally, while marginalizing their own “rally”.

Betcha Glenn Beck is wringing his hands gleefully and giggling maniacally about the fack that Stewart’s and Colbert’s childish and jealous attempt to spitefully mock Glenn Beck’s rally has just backfired on them.

In their smugness, glibness and inept cutesiness, Stewart is such a schmuck and Colbert is such a putz.

Taqiyya : falsehoods told to prevent the denigration of Islam, to protect oneself, or to promote the cause of Islam. Lying is sanctioned in the Qur’an and the Sunna (Sunnah) “the body of traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Muslim community”.

Taqiyya permits and, in fact, encourages lying to non-believers in business dealings, under oath in testimony before a court or in statements made to the media.

What else does one need to know – about Cat Stevens and Islam in general?

Cat Stevens no longer exists. He dissapeared a long time ago after he made lots of money off of the youth of the world. He has lived quite a nice lifestyle all these years. Why dig him up now. He is an avowed muslim and teaches in mosques. He is no longer part of this countrys pop culture. Dump him!

Overall, the issue is the unrepentant claims made by Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam.

He stated, “He must be killed. The Qur’an makes it clear” and affirmed it, “yeah, its there in the Qur’an. I couldn’t deny that” then reiterated it, “blasphemy, I could not tell a lie and confirmed that…the Qur’an considers it, without repentance, as a capital offense” and reinforced it, “blasphemy according to Islamic Law, I simply repeated the legal view” and further referenced, “Scriptural texts, based directly on historical commentaries of the Qur’an” and again, “Islamic view based on the Qur’an, the Prophet’s sayings (peace and blessings be upon him) and the rulings of the Caliphs and renowned schools of Islamic jurisprudence.”

The examples of the barbarity of Islam are so numerous and ubiquitous that ANYONE who is paying even the slightest amount of attention and looking on with ANY intellectual honesty would come to the conclusion that there is NOTHING redeemable about Islam. Continuing to cite examples of Islam’s opposition to civilization is an exercise in redundancy. What is needed is a plan to roll back and eventually eliminate Islam. Anything else is a waste of time. We are fiddling while civilization burns.

all this talk of Israel’s problems maybe coming to a head,
then watching all the t.v. shows talking of the end times predicted to be here in late 2012 by some past seers (those who see the future, or not). that got me thinking about what we know about what is scheduled to happen in late 2012.

ok – what comes to mind? let’s see. there is another presidential election in the U.S. we have a very unpopular prez. who appears to know dookeysquat about anything, probably doesn’t yet want to step aside when he gets trounced, late in 2012, and all that goes with that.
maybe, even worse, he wins, God forbid.

let’s throw into that pot that the world has been simmering for 2 more years, with more and more federal gov. intrusions into our freedoms.

let’s not forget that the world economy may not have imploded, yet.

iran has even more bombs, as does n. korea. Russians? Chinese? Aliens?